On Wednesday, June 7, CWA 1037 members who are childcare workers at the Unified Vailsburg Services Organization (UVSO) in Newark picketed in front of their workplace to demand higher wages and better working conditions. UVSO is a curriculum-based daycare for infants, toddlers, and children 6 weeks and older.

“I’m an Early Head Start Teacher and we get paid hourly which is unacceptable, said Santina Morton, a Teacher and Union rep at UVSO. “We are teachers, and we have credentials, and we want to be treated as such.”

Teachers joined the lunch time picket holding signs that read, “We’re the workforce behind the workforce” and “Our children deserve happy staff”. Workers hope to cement a contract that acknowledges the value they bring to New Jersey as childcare workers which are currently underpaid throughout the country. It is one of several community-based childcare centers that have organized to improve working conditions for themselves and learning conditions for the children in their care.